Kings of Ash

by Richard Nell

  They hacked Trung’s guards and male servants apart without mercy, seeming annoyed at their feeble attempts to fight back. They pointed at corpses and joked amongst themselves as they passed. Again Arun felt himself in a daze, barely understanding anymore how he’d come to this place, or how he would escape it.

  Many of the women retched as they were led out through the gambling hall and the pits. A hundred corpses or more lay strewn about like garbage after a storm, many shoved into corners or against walls to clear a walking path. The warriors left outside welcomed the palace-raiders by banging their shields and stomping or raising deep and feral voices to chant their savage songs. They left the fortress of King Trung as conquering heroes, and Arun supposed they were.

  These men had sailed an unknown sea, stormed the beach of a powerful king, and with only a handful of losses, they had killed him. Now they marched on foreign sand with a line of young, beautiful women behind them.

  Arun was forced to scream and holler and throw women forcibly onto the boats when they realized their fate. The men of ash formed a wall of flesh and iron to block their flight, but otherwise tried not to touch them, or interfere. Arun and eventually Kwal helped load the women and settled them below, then returned to the beach exhausted and trembling.

  They glanced at each other but said nothing. Arun lit a cigar with shaking hands and removed a flask of rum, passing both to the stoic captain. For the first time, Kwal took both. They shared something nameless on the beach, perhaps a feeling of dread that what they did now could not be undone, and one day they’d wish it was otherwise.

  Together they watched as smoke and then fire begin to rise from the palace, and the city around it. They watched the men of ash return in their twos and threes from elsewhere on the island, soaked in blood and carrying plunder. As the sun froze and began its dip in the sky, at last Ruka approached.

  More men trailed behind him carrying chests marked with Trung’s seal, and Arun understood they had robbed the treasury. The big warrior ‘Aiden’ silenced the men around him at Ruka’s approach and dropped to his knee. The others followed, and soon every man of ash sunk an armored leg to the sand.

  Ruka raised his hands and spoke foreign words in his elemental voice, then came forward and took Aiden and raised him up with wet eyes as he gestured at the men. Soon all were on their feet, chanting and screaming in what could only be called religious fervor.

  Arun stared at their strangeness—so many of them brothers, even twins who looked almost the same. Their pale, ruddy skin made them resemble corpses, their wild beards and hair and dirt-covered bodies making them appear as savage as their deeds. He saw the terrible threat of them, the foreign strangeness, the joy in killing men just like Arun. All he could think was what have I done.

  “You’ve done well,” Ruka said to him and Kwal later as they boarded his flagship. He pointed at a smaller catamaran scout-ship on the shore, his men dragging it towards the water. “Take this back to your king,” he said, putting a hand to Kwal’s shoulder. “I have met few men as competent as you, my friend, on land or sea. Go with my people’s thanks. I hope to see you again.”

  Kwal bowed stiffly, then moved towards his next task without a word, as was his way.

  “Pirate.” Ruka smiled as he met Arun’s eyes. “It seems our bargain is finished.” He took Farahi’s letter from his pocket, which Arun had decided to give him in advance. “I have read your king’s words, and so it seems I cannot give you what I promised. If you wish you may come with me now, at my side until I have paid you in some other fashion. But, I think you won’t. So go back to Farahi and your princess, and live in their favor. Like you I am Farahi’s ally. But I remain in your debt.”

  Arun nodded and did his best not to race at full speed towards the catamaran and escape. In a grotesque, inexplicable way, he still trusted Ruka. Perhaps he even liked him.

  It seemed impossible to reconcile the honorable man before him and his now-perfect words to the savage who had come before. He saw the sorcerer who could make miracles, and the disfigured beast who fed on men’s flesh. He couldn’t separate it, any of it. Ruka was all of them.

  “I will tell him,” he said as he hoisted the cloth sack holding Trung’s partly-eaten head. Then he forced himself to his full height, and to step forward and extend his hand as a man respecting another man. Because in truth, he did. Ruka seized it, and grinned.

  “Keep the dagger, pirate, and be careful. Kikay is treacherous, and Farahi plays a game of Chahen with his servants as pieces.”

  With that he turned and gestured at his men to make ready. But as Arun left the deck and walked to the catamaran, Ruka called to him from his flagship.

  “And tell your king—I have written on his letter what supplies the land of ash will require, and what we will pay. Tell him I will expect his first shipment in the spring.”

  * * *

  Ruka and his men sailed with fair winds and clear skies for two days. Going South was far easier, because even if they were far separated in a storm and blown off course, following Tegrin would still bring them to the wide land of the Ascom.

  The men maintained their almost boyish excitement for a time, then faded to a quiet pride and perhaps a disbelieving numbness. The wounded were praised, stories of violence spread up and down the ship and repeated over with fresh exaggeration, until even the tellers laughed at their own wild tales.

  All agreed Folvar had fought bravely and led his men with courage. The legend of Aiden spread as some relayed his prowess on the beach. Only Birmun seemed uninterested in the many tales of glory, but his silence did not concern the others.

  The captured women required tending. Men argued and came up with a dozen systems to decide who would be given the privilege of taking their meals, helping them to the buckets, or walking them on deck. Ruka had taught them ‘loa’, ‘please’, and ‘thank you’. And though everything the men of ash did seemed to terrify the islanders, the mumbled words and gentleness kept them calm enough.

  Their small fleet faced a storm on the third day, but with the men bailing and the sturdy design of Ruka’s kingmakers, they soon came through and kept their course.

  Ruka was no longer permitted to do things for himself. The men scrambled to care for Sula, to bring him water or bread and dried pork on a barrel lid, bowing and scraping like cursed island slaves whenever he approached. He tried to tell himself it was necessary, or at least inevitable, but found the change appalling.

  On the fourth day he sat in his cabin alone. He had all of Farahi’s words still locked in his mind forever, and summoned the feel of the letter again to his fingers, and the smell of the ink. He read it again in his mind.

  “My friend,” it started, which made Ruka smile. “If you’re reading this, I hope it means Trung is dead, or will be shortly. To me his death is a solemn pact between us—a trust sealed with blood. Like you I have often felt alone in this world. I did not expect to be joined in vision by a gifted man from a land of ice and snow.

  “I, too, have gifts, which perhaps a man like you can hear and believe. My gift is to see the future of this world. I see the possible, and the likely, great and small—the future of nations, and the choices of my opponent in a game of Chahen. I see it best in my dreams, my friend, and in my dreams I have seen two very different worlds.

  “In the first, your land of ash and the people of Pyu go to war. What follows is always death, destruction and starvation—hatred and fighting until one side or the other is destroyed. That is the most likely future. If it isn’t in our lifetime perhaps it will be in our children’s, or theirs. That is the easy future. To bring it you and I need only do nothing, and one day my nightmares will become reality.

  “But there is a second world—as unlikely as a disfigured boy surviving the Ascom, crossing an uncrossable sea with the greatest mind of a generation, and befriending a lonely king. It is a world where islander and ash-man come together in brotherhood, very carefully, and with open eyes—where Pyu grain-ship
s bring life to frozen shores, and giant warriors sail in Pyu warships. Over hundreds of years they marry and mix until they face this world as one. In this world, after many hardships, our people might form the greatest sea-power ever seen, and turn their eyes to distant shores.

  “This is the future I wish for my descendants. It is a future perhaps possible to forge with your help, with your mind, and your great gifts. It will be hard, Ruka, and take all our lives. It will be bloody in both your lands and mine, because the great power of Naran must be resisted and to do so will bleed us both. One day it will come with all its might, with all its warriors and allies, and both our people will require many changes to resist. You and I will have to trust each other and speak many times of our plans and schemes and be ready to kill and lie and sacrifice. But for my part, I vow to see it done. The choice is yours.”

  ‘Your friend,’ it ended as it began, and Ruka wiped his eyes as the wetness threatened the page. He laughed as he remembered every loss in Chahen despite immense mental calculations and different strategies, feeling always a step behind.

  What he believed, exactly, he wasn’t sure—but he believed enough. He believed the island king saw the future better than any; that he was a good man who would help Ruka’s people, and that his true enemy were conquerors like Naran, nature itself, and man’s ignorance.

  Ruka wanted only an excuse to join Farahi, and now their purposes aligned. The Enlightened and all those who had doomed the Vishan were long dead and gone. Their descendants were no more responsible for their fate than Ruka’s were theirs. The brave were the brave, and if a foreign empire would set their feet on paradise than let them come and take it. Ruka did not blame them. But by every god or spirit, the men of ash would make their claim.

  Remember us, said the Vishan. And Ruka would, but the good must be remembered with the bad.

  His ancestors had survived. For this they would always deserve praise, but they had lacked the strength to hold their islands. They’d been destroyed by a greater force because after all fine words and the spectacle of civilization, what truly mattered was strength. And the men of ash were strong.

  Ruka had read many books on war and empire in Farahi’s study. To face Naran and anyone else who threatened them his people would need their own fleet. Not just warships, but transports—the strength to invade an enemy and destroy his land and cities. They would need to learn how to fight armies and navies and build walls and navigate the seas, to siege castles and negotiate with kings. But they would learn. Ruka would ensure it.

  He looked up to the darkening skies, knowing another storm formed on the horizon. His kingmakers would survive this as their creators had survived. They would reach land and Farahi would keep his word, and between them they would prepare their people for the hardness of the future.

  Then would come the true storm—a storm building for two thousand years, made of the sons and daughters of once bitter enemies, an alliance between the lost children of paradise—a storm of ash and sand.

  Part III - Kings of Ash

  Chapter 58

  “Land, shaman. Kormet is ahead of us, I see the horn.”

  Ruka glanced at Eshen swaying in the crow’s nest in the afternoon sun, then gripped the rail as he watched for the coast. He closed his eyes and breathed as the fear of ruin subsided.

  More luck, he knew—another crossing of the uncrossable with fairer weather than any man deserved.

  “Signal the captains. I’ll speak with them before we land.”

  Birmun nodded and motioned to one of his men, who waved the agreed flag that meant gather. It would take time and use what little daylight remained, but Ruka preferred to land in near darkness anyway.

  The ships paddled and eased their way into some semblance of a line, and the captains used shore-boats or gangplank to cross to Ruka’s flagship. They followed below, and soon Ruka hunched beneath his Kingmaker’s hull—not far from his many, huddled prisoners—in a circle with his captains and retainers.

  He looked at each of them and did not rush the moment. Aiden had taken to carrying a scabbarded rune-sword at all times in one hand, as if ready at any moment to kill for the gods. Despite the burden of the weight, Altan carried his axe strapped to his back, his eyes still unfocused, as if he barely clung to life. Eshen watched the stairs, the prisoners, and even the other men, ever-vigilant. Tahar’s beard had gone grey since Ruka met him, but the same impatience and fierce cunning lay in his eyes. Folvar had begun to transform after Halin, new purpose straightening his spine and squaring his shoulders. Birmun was competent and looked calm, but was the only ‘retainer’ Ruka did not yet trust.

  He looked to Egil last. Their history still brought him shame, and one day he knew he would pay for it. But like the many lives ruined by Ruka’s purpose, this justice would have to wait.

  “It is possible our landing will not be welcome,” Ruka explained, “and that we are already betrayed.” Some of the men nodded, but said nothing. “Folvar has told me his father never believed we’d return, and if we did he fully intends to inform the Order the moment it benefits him.”

  The young man nodded, and Tahar sneered. “Then let us land in the darkness and finish him, shaman.”

  Aiden’s eye twitched in displeasure, and Ruka understood why.

  “Halvar gave his word, and so did we. He may betray but he has not yet. For now we owe him what we promised. We will land and greet him as an ally. But we will be cautious, and ready.” Here he took a breath, then met Birmun’s eyes. “High Priestess Dala may also betray. The Order might be waiting, and if they are then we will be forced to sail elsewhere. We will have to start again and find new allies and it will all take time, and be difficult.”

  Birmun gave no reaction, though whether this was because he agreed, or knew speaking otherwise was meaningless, Ruka did not know. In any case the others took note. Some had not trusted the man from the start—Tahar in particular. Aiden’s quiet voice broke the silence.

  “Shaman. You have taken us past the edge of the world, and shown us paradise in this life. I will see you to the mountain, if that is the path, and kill any who stand before you. That is my vow.” His eyes strayed for the briefest moment to Birmun as if in threat, and Ruka smiled gratefully. The others nodded or grunted their approval.

  That he he had earned such loyalty from a great man moved him, but Ruka wished he did not need to deceive. He met the eyes of his followers one by one again, knowing his own golden pupils would look strange and monstrous in the dimness of his kingmaker’s hollow, but that these few, perhaps, no longer cared.

  “Make ready, cousins. This is only the first step on a long and difficult march. One day I will tell you everything, all that I know, as well as I understand it. Until then you must try to keep an open mind, and to trust what you’ve seen.”

  “And the gods?” Aiden smiled.

  Ruka forced himself to return it. “And the gods. Now let us go and greet our ‘ally’.”

  The men grunted or nodded their respect, then made their way up the stairs to return to their ships in order of their reputations. Only Egil lingered.

  Ruka raised a brow, and his oldest ally or maybe prisoner blinked as if unsure, his body half turned towards the stairs perhaps prepared to run. At last his eyes flicked to Ruka’s face.

  “We have walked a long road, you and I, haven’t we?”

  Ruka hesitated, unsure where this was going. Even now he could see Egil as he once had been—the handsome skald roaming at his will, drinking and rutting his way across the land of ash. He saw the man’s dread as he ran for his life from wolves, and the greed as he offered a strange child of the Vishan a story, and an ill-fated plan.

  “Yes,” Ruka said at last, still hearing in perfect detail the sound of Egil’s screams.

  He will ask to leave, he realized. He will say he has done as much and more as any man, and that now he wishes as a free man to take his family away from this. And I must allow it.

  Despite all the yea
rs and memories, Egil’s expression seemed almost new, and strange—emotional, but unafraid. He smiled at last and broke his gaze, then turned with his slight limp to ascend the stairs. He stopped and spoke over his shoulder.

  “I did not know your mother, Ruka, but…I think she would be proud of you.”

  With that he climbed and left Ruka alone with the captive women in the gloom. For a long moment, he stood very still. In his Grove he sat in his mother’s garden, staring at her likeness etched in stone. He sat feeling numb, thinking on his life, on all the dead and the weight of history and the hope and terror of the future.

  Would you be proud, Beyla?

  He did not know. He did not know either how to change the world without a great sea of blood and misery. Would Beyla approve of that, too?

  Yet without intervention, the children of ash would go on starving and freezing until perhaps their own ignorance destroyed the land that sustained them. So what was right? And who should decide?

  Ruka stared at her image until the tears came.

  Soon Girl-from-Trung’s-Pit came and stood beside him. She had wrapped her scarf tightly to protect his eyes from the bruises he’d left, and she smiled as she took his hand. He turned and sunk into her arms, picturing Beyla’s smile as he wept like a child.

  In the world of the living, Bukayag walked to the deck in silence, and watched the coast loom closer in the darkness.

  * * *

  “Good evening, ally.” Ruka spoke in a neutral tone, staring from the almost moonless night outside the chieftain’s hall.

  Chief Halvar stumbled from the front of the double doors. ‘Bloody shite!’ he called, looking about himself as if for a weapon. His equally surprised sons, and a few of his warriors, huddled up around him. They stared at Ruka and his retainers flickering in the torchlight.

  “We have returned,” Ruka said, because it seemed the man could not believe his eyes. “Our raid is successful.”